1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to data processing systems, and more particularly to data processing systems having user assistance resources.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is known to provide documentation for the purpose of permitting a user to operate a data processing system. With the earliest data processing systems, this documentation often took the form of user manuals that described the operation and utilization of the corresponding data processing system. While proving somewhat useful, a large set of hard copy manuals for a complete computer and set of corresponding applications are often quite voluminous, making the task of finding a solution to even a simple question difficult. Further, hard copy manuals typically require a large amount of physical space, are expensive to buy, and demand significant human resource to maintain and keep current.
As systems were designed to be more interactive, it became common to provide user documentation within the data processing system hardware and software itself. A first step in this evolutionary process was to simply provide electronic versions of the previously available hard copy manuals. The electronic manuals were typically divided into groups including those that were dedicated to the computer system itself (hardware manuals), those that were dedicated to the computer operating system (systems manuals), and those that were dedicated to the application programs (application manuals). Providing the manuals in electronic form addresses some of the problems of the earlier hard copy manuals, including reducing acquisition and maintenance costs and allowing users in remote locations to access the manuals directly via their computer system.
While these electronic user manuals provide some advantages over the hard copy manuals, a number of problems remain. Like the hard copy manuals, the electronic user manuals typically only included an index and a table of contents. Some limitations of the table of contents/index approach include: the user seeking help must know exactly what words or phrases to use when seeking help, and the list of available topics in the table of contents/index still may be very large, thus limiting the speed and precision with which a user is able to obtain the assistance the user seeks. Some electronic manuals include a keyword search capability, and more sophisticated electronic manuals include hyperlinks between related sectors.
The above problems are more acute when dealing with multi-platform computing environments. Today, multi-platform systems are widely in use. In such a system, a user""s application program may reside on one computer system, the user""s data may reside on another computer system, while the user may be running the application from yet a third computer system. A user at a personal workstation may not even know on which computer system their application is running, much less where to look for help information relating to the application.
Furthermore, today""s distributed, multi-platform computer systems can present unique problems of moving information between computer systems. User manuals for a particular computer system often do not contemplate the types of system-to-system configurations and interactions that multi-platform users face. Such interoperability issues are often completely outside the scope of all of the user documentation.
The present invention overcomes many of the disadvantages associated with the prior art by providing a user customizable help system for a data processing environment which utilizes a graphical interface to identify solutions and/or topics of interest. This graphical help system displays partitioned groupings of help topics organized in a intuitively functional, positional manner such that a user will instinctively know where to find the desired help topic.
These partitioned groupings of help topics may represent hardware platforms, operating environments, application groupings, or groupings of functions within an application. Within each of the partitioned groupings, the invention contemplates providing multiple xe2x80x9cview typesxe2x80x9d of help topics. In an illustrative embodiment, xe2x80x9cview typesxe2x80x9d correspond to different types of users of the data processing system. It is contemplated that other embodiments of the xe2x80x9cview typexe2x80x9d concept might include view type groupings for data manipulation (printing, storage, and removal) or applications (middleware, tools and utilities). By providing multiple views, the help system can be easily tailored to better address differences in experience, sophistication, and job requirements between widely disparate users of the same data processing system.
In one illustrative embodiment of the present invention, two xe2x80x9cviewxe2x80x9d selections are provided. The first selection corresponds to a xe2x80x9csystem viewxe2x80x9d and the second selection corresponds to a xe2x80x9cuser viewxe2x80x9d. The xe2x80x9csystem viewxe2x80x9d might be used by a computer system administrator or application developer, while the xe2x80x9cuser viewxe2x80x9d might be activated by a general user of the data processing system.
The xe2x80x9csystem viewxe2x80x9d of the illustrative embodiment preferably contains help topic pushbuttons that are graphically partitioned by groupings (such as computer hardware platforms, computer operating environments, sets of applications, or functions within a particular application) which will provide help on topics of specific interest to system administrators such as setting file access permissions, user passwords, or diagnostic utilities.
The xe2x80x9cuser viewxe2x80x9d preferably contains help topic pushbuttons that are graphically partitioned by groupings (such as computer hardware platforms, computer operating environments, sets of applications, or functions within a particular application) which will provide help on topics of specific interest to general system users such as using electronic mail, a database management system, a spreadsheet, or file transfer utilities. Thus, the present invention can be a carefully tailored, graphical alternative to a standard table of contents, allowing for a more intuitive approach to finding topics of interest for distinct classes of users.
In another embodiment of the present invention, a system and methodology for implementing user assistance functions for users of data processing systems having multiple computer operating environments is contemplated. Preferably, a user is presented with a one screen graphical overview of the entire data processing environment, logically partitioned into functional units. Within each functional unit, the help topics most relevant to the type of user requesting the help information are presented. As an example, the screen of help topics might be graphically partitioned into groups representing a OS 2200 environment, a UnixWare environment, a Windows NT environment, and a Personal Computer Workstation Windows 95 operating environment. This graphically tailored, partitioned approach to presentation of help topics is more intuitive than a text based table of contents approach. The system may also provide user assistance functions concerning interoperability of diverse applications, whether hosted on the same computer platform or hosted on different computer platforms.
In another illustrative embodiment, the help system has one or more screens of user selectable help topics. These help topics are graphically partitioned into two or more groups of topics corresponding to hardware platforms within the data processing system. As an example, the screen of help topics might be graphically partitioned into groups representing a UNISYS 2200 mainframe computer, a local file server computer, a desktop personal computer, and a laptop computer.
In another illustrative embodiment, the present invention graphically partitions one or more screens of user selectable help topics into groups of topics corresponding to sets of applications within the data processing system. As an example, the screen of help topics might be graphically partitioned into groups representing an office suite of applications such as Microsoft Office 97, or an internet toolkit containing applications such as a web browser, HTML toolkit, JAVA toolkit, and an E-mail application.
In yet another illustrative embodiment, the present invention groups one or more screens of user selectable help topics by functional blocks of a selected computer application. Preferably, the functional blocks are interrelated via a functional diagram. This functional diagram may include interconnections between the functional blocks which indicate topographical relationships between the functional blocks in the application. These topographical relationships may identify an ordered, positionally relevant set of functional topics, graphically displayed in such a manner that an application user may know intuitively where to seek help for an application subtask. An example of such a functional diagram might be Microsoft Excel, with functional blocks corresponding to importing/exporting files, worksheets, charts, file management, printing, and using macros. The help topic pushbuttons within the groupings provide access points to corresponding help information. The help information may reside in a dedicated help database, a universal help database, etc.